Saturday, February 09, 2008
Cows, Pigs, Wars, And Witches
Cows, Pigs, Wars, And Witches: The Riddles Of Culture by Marvin Harris is an exciting and stimulating book + he presents a new paradigm for understanding anthropology and history + he shows that no matter how bizarre a people's behavior may seem, it always stems from concrete social and economic conditions.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Art Market Update
Souren Melikia writes about Christie's auction of Impressionist and Modern Master paintings + record prices paid for a painting by Kees van Dongen + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/05/arts/melik6.php?page=1
Colored Stone Update
The Bush administration on Tuesday (Feb 5, 2008) imposed more financial sanctions against a business tycoon linked to Burma’s military rulers + the action against firms controlled by Tay Za and his Htoo Trading conglomerate is significant because his group also controls (directly/indirectly) important jade mining blocks + other business interests + I think the world will have to wait and see the effectiveness of the sanctions because Burma’s neighboring countries condemn the sanctions for obvious reasons.
Useful link:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=4761
Useful link:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=4761
All That Glitters..
(via Bangkok Post, Feb 7, 2008) Karnjana Karnjanatawe writes:
You will a lot more than rings and necklaces in the city’s longest established goldsmith’s shop
Shopping for gold is easier said than done when you’re in Yaowarat, Bangkok’s China Town. But it’s not the high prices that make you hesitate, it’s the stupefying extent of the choices available. Yaowarat, also known as Thanon Sai Thong (Gold Street) has more than 100 gold shops.
The oldest of them all is Tang Toh Kang on Mangkorn Road. But it is not just age or wealth of experience that distinguishes this goldsmith’s shop from its competitors. Here, gold jewelry and ornamnents are still made the old way—painstakingly, by hand. The shop also runs the only private museum in Bangkok dedicated to goldsmithing, a treasure trove of arcane tool, trinkets and collectibles from the late 19th century.
‘We’ve been in the business for more than 130 years,’ says Chaikit Tantikarn, the shop’s deputy manager, a member of the fourth generation of the Tang Toh Kang family. In his opinion, adherence to a strict code of ethical conduct plus training staff to put the customer first are the key factors in attracting, and retaining, clients.
‘Honesty is the best policy, one we’ve always followed,’ he says.
In this country the unit of weight for gold is the baht (not to be confused with our unit of currency). Gold jewelry sold in the Kingdom must be 96.5 percent pure; the standard for gold bars is even higher—99.99 percent. But if you buy a one-baht gold necklace, how can you be really sure that it contains exactly 15.16 grammes of 96.5 percent pure gold? Which is why in this line of business, perhaps more so than in many others, trust is such an important commodity.
One mark of a reputable goldsmith’s, Chaikit says, is an establishment that is always willing to buy back gold from a customer at the current market price. He compares it to a firm offering a life-time guarantee on its products.
The shop was opened during the reign of King Rama V by Chaikit’s great grandfather, a skilled goldsmith who fled war in his native China and emigrated to Siam in search of a better life. Initially, Tang Toh Kang was only able to find poorly paid work as a laborer but he saved every penny he could and was finally able to realize the dream of being his own boss.
The family patriarch started out employing four or fie goldsmiths, offering both ready-to-wear jewelry and made-to-order items. Their creativity and the quality of their work was such that the business rapidly expanded, eventually employed around artisans. In 1921 the family moved into a new, seven-storey building in Yaowarat; it was then the tallest structure in the area. That same year Tang Toh Kang was awarded a pair of wooden garuda statuettes by King Rama VI in token of his appreciation of the excellent service provided by the shop.
As the years passed, more and more goldsmiths opened businesses in the neighborhood, with machines gradually handling many of the tasks formerly done by skilled craftsmen. But Tang Toh Kang and his team continued to make all their jewelry in the tried and trusted way, a practice which is still followed to this day.
‘We believe in hand-made products,’ says Chaikit, ‘because the quality is so much better than anything you get by using factory machines.’
Although the number of people patronizing gold shops is not as high as it was even a couple of years back, there is still a steady demand. Customers tend to buy gold jewelry not so much to wear themselves but as gifts, especially in the period leading up to Chinese New Year, or as a form of savings. And with the price of gold constantly rising, many now purchase the precious metal for speculative purposes, treating it as another kind of investment, Chaikit says.
Today his shop only employs three in-house goldsmiths, the sons of artisans who previously worked for the family. All of them live on the premises. Now 80, Hungjua Sae-haeng came to Tang Toh Kang as an apprentice at the age of 16. ‘It was during World War II and I followed by father to work here. I learned how to make jewelry bit by bit until I liked the work so much that I decided to make it a career. I think of it as a labor of love,’ he says.
Hungjua, whom colleagues respectfully address as Ah-pae (uncle), was making an oval link chain comprised of scores of very small rings. Although he wears spectacles he has no need for a magnifying glass. ‘I’m used to it,’ he says with a smile.
His work space is an old wooden table which looks like a desk you might find in a primary school. On it is a lamp, tools and several plastic bottles containing chemicals. There’s a drawer for keeping gold dust and storing other equipment. His hands are gnarled and covered in liver-spots, but steady as a rock, with none of the trembling that often affects people of his age.
Ah-pae shares the workshop with two younger artisans. Arun Haemcharoenwong, who’s only 27; and Thawee Pitakratchatasak, 51. They’ve notched up 20 and 38 years of experience, respectively, in the art of jewelry making.
‘I came here to help my father, who’s now passed away, back when I was only a kid,’ Arun recalls. ‘I was around seven when I started working in the shop,’ he says as he wields the blowtorch used to heat up the gold wire and make it soft enough to manipulate.
Observing what the other workers were doing, and closely following orders, Arun says he slowly graduated to developing his own designs. ‘Arun’s work is very detailed. He’s a goldsmith who shows a lot of promise’ was the verdict of Rungradit Ritthiching, a sales assistant in the shop who sometimes doubles as a museum guide.
Once he has made the length of wire sufficiently malleable Arun inserts one end of it in a metal contraption which contains rows of holes of different sizes. He turns a gear wheel which slowly pulls the wire through, making it longer and thinner. Then he repeats the process, using another hole with a smaller diameter to get the wire to the desired size.
To make the individual links for the gold chain, the wire is carefully bent around a wooden rod, the size of the ring depending on the thickness of the wood, and then Arun cuts a short length off with an ordinary scissors. He threads this through a completed link. Next, he uses needle nose pliers to force the two ends together to form a ring, bonding the tips using a mixture of gold dust and a liquid called nam pra san thong. His final task is to file off any rough edges.
‘An oval link necklace can be made by one man in a day or less,’ volunteers his colleague, Thawee, adding that the smaller the diameter of the links, the longer the job takes.
Nowadays most goldsmiths use machinery for all but the most delicate steps in the jewelry-making process. Doing it all by hand requires a good deal of patience and ‘heart’, as Thawee puts it. The onerous nature of the work tends to discourage newcomers to the trade, he adds.
Although this type of jewelry takes a lot longer to make than the mass-produced stuff, the advantage is that unique pieces can be made to the customer’s exact specifications. Certainly, the showroom has many unusual items on display including statuettes of animals in the Chinese zodiac and of various Chinese deities, tea sets, antique purses and little boxes.
A visit to the fourth and sixth floors of the building reveals treasures of greater antiquity. ‘Our forebears loved collecting old objects from China,’Chaikit explains, ‘and a lot of these things were left behind when the family moved out some 20 years ago. When we did a big spring clean around five years back to prepare for a visit by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn we discovered more than a thousand items tucked away on the upper floors.’
It was decided t convert two floors into a museum to house te collection. Among the items on display are sets of porcelain statuettes of Fu Lu Shou, the three Chinese deities that represent happiness, wealth and longevity. Here, too, are goldsmithing tools from the century before last, postcards, weighing scales made from wood plus various sizes and types of moulds, ring and belt buckle blocks.
If you wish to visit little repository of curios, phone first for permission. And to do the place justice, reckon on spending at least an hour there. So passionate are they about their craft that time tends to fly when you get taking to such knowledgeable gentlemen as these.
For more information call 02 224 2422, 02 622 8640/2 or 02 252 2898
www.tang-toh-kang.com
You will a lot more than rings and necklaces in the city’s longest established goldsmith’s shop
Shopping for gold is easier said than done when you’re in Yaowarat, Bangkok’s China Town. But it’s not the high prices that make you hesitate, it’s the stupefying extent of the choices available. Yaowarat, also known as Thanon Sai Thong (Gold Street) has more than 100 gold shops.
The oldest of them all is Tang Toh Kang on Mangkorn Road. But it is not just age or wealth of experience that distinguishes this goldsmith’s shop from its competitors. Here, gold jewelry and ornamnents are still made the old way—painstakingly, by hand. The shop also runs the only private museum in Bangkok dedicated to goldsmithing, a treasure trove of arcane tool, trinkets and collectibles from the late 19th century.
‘We’ve been in the business for more than 130 years,’ says Chaikit Tantikarn, the shop’s deputy manager, a member of the fourth generation of the Tang Toh Kang family. In his opinion, adherence to a strict code of ethical conduct plus training staff to put the customer first are the key factors in attracting, and retaining, clients.
‘Honesty is the best policy, one we’ve always followed,’ he says.
In this country the unit of weight for gold is the baht (not to be confused with our unit of currency). Gold jewelry sold in the Kingdom must be 96.5 percent pure; the standard for gold bars is even higher—99.99 percent. But if you buy a one-baht gold necklace, how can you be really sure that it contains exactly 15.16 grammes of 96.5 percent pure gold? Which is why in this line of business, perhaps more so than in many others, trust is such an important commodity.
One mark of a reputable goldsmith’s, Chaikit says, is an establishment that is always willing to buy back gold from a customer at the current market price. He compares it to a firm offering a life-time guarantee on its products.
The shop was opened during the reign of King Rama V by Chaikit’s great grandfather, a skilled goldsmith who fled war in his native China and emigrated to Siam in search of a better life. Initially, Tang Toh Kang was only able to find poorly paid work as a laborer but he saved every penny he could and was finally able to realize the dream of being his own boss.
The family patriarch started out employing four or fie goldsmiths, offering both ready-to-wear jewelry and made-to-order items. Their creativity and the quality of their work was such that the business rapidly expanded, eventually employed around artisans. In 1921 the family moved into a new, seven-storey building in Yaowarat; it was then the tallest structure in the area. That same year Tang Toh Kang was awarded a pair of wooden garuda statuettes by King Rama VI in token of his appreciation of the excellent service provided by the shop.
As the years passed, more and more goldsmiths opened businesses in the neighborhood, with machines gradually handling many of the tasks formerly done by skilled craftsmen. But Tang Toh Kang and his team continued to make all their jewelry in the tried and trusted way, a practice which is still followed to this day.
‘We believe in hand-made products,’ says Chaikit, ‘because the quality is so much better than anything you get by using factory machines.’
Although the number of people patronizing gold shops is not as high as it was even a couple of years back, there is still a steady demand. Customers tend to buy gold jewelry not so much to wear themselves but as gifts, especially in the period leading up to Chinese New Year, or as a form of savings. And with the price of gold constantly rising, many now purchase the precious metal for speculative purposes, treating it as another kind of investment, Chaikit says.
Today his shop only employs three in-house goldsmiths, the sons of artisans who previously worked for the family. All of them live on the premises. Now 80, Hungjua Sae-haeng came to Tang Toh Kang as an apprentice at the age of 16. ‘It was during World War II and I followed by father to work here. I learned how to make jewelry bit by bit until I liked the work so much that I decided to make it a career. I think of it as a labor of love,’ he says.
Hungjua, whom colleagues respectfully address as Ah-pae (uncle), was making an oval link chain comprised of scores of very small rings. Although he wears spectacles he has no need for a magnifying glass. ‘I’m used to it,’ he says with a smile.
His work space is an old wooden table which looks like a desk you might find in a primary school. On it is a lamp, tools and several plastic bottles containing chemicals. There’s a drawer for keeping gold dust and storing other equipment. His hands are gnarled and covered in liver-spots, but steady as a rock, with none of the trembling that often affects people of his age.
Ah-pae shares the workshop with two younger artisans. Arun Haemcharoenwong, who’s only 27; and Thawee Pitakratchatasak, 51. They’ve notched up 20 and 38 years of experience, respectively, in the art of jewelry making.
‘I came here to help my father, who’s now passed away, back when I was only a kid,’ Arun recalls. ‘I was around seven when I started working in the shop,’ he says as he wields the blowtorch used to heat up the gold wire and make it soft enough to manipulate.
Observing what the other workers were doing, and closely following orders, Arun says he slowly graduated to developing his own designs. ‘Arun’s work is very detailed. He’s a goldsmith who shows a lot of promise’ was the verdict of Rungradit Ritthiching, a sales assistant in the shop who sometimes doubles as a museum guide.
Once he has made the length of wire sufficiently malleable Arun inserts one end of it in a metal contraption which contains rows of holes of different sizes. He turns a gear wheel which slowly pulls the wire through, making it longer and thinner. Then he repeats the process, using another hole with a smaller diameter to get the wire to the desired size.
To make the individual links for the gold chain, the wire is carefully bent around a wooden rod, the size of the ring depending on the thickness of the wood, and then Arun cuts a short length off with an ordinary scissors. He threads this through a completed link. Next, he uses needle nose pliers to force the two ends together to form a ring, bonding the tips using a mixture of gold dust and a liquid called nam pra san thong. His final task is to file off any rough edges.
‘An oval link necklace can be made by one man in a day or less,’ volunteers his colleague, Thawee, adding that the smaller the diameter of the links, the longer the job takes.
Nowadays most goldsmiths use machinery for all but the most delicate steps in the jewelry-making process. Doing it all by hand requires a good deal of patience and ‘heart’, as Thawee puts it. The onerous nature of the work tends to discourage newcomers to the trade, he adds.
Although this type of jewelry takes a lot longer to make than the mass-produced stuff, the advantage is that unique pieces can be made to the customer’s exact specifications. Certainly, the showroom has many unusual items on display including statuettes of animals in the Chinese zodiac and of various Chinese deities, tea sets, antique purses and little boxes.
A visit to the fourth and sixth floors of the building reveals treasures of greater antiquity. ‘Our forebears loved collecting old objects from China,’Chaikit explains, ‘and a lot of these things were left behind when the family moved out some 20 years ago. When we did a big spring clean around five years back to prepare for a visit by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn we discovered more than a thousand items tucked away on the upper floors.’
It was decided t convert two floors into a museum to house te collection. Among the items on display are sets of porcelain statuettes of Fu Lu Shou, the three Chinese deities that represent happiness, wealth and longevity. Here, too, are goldsmithing tools from the century before last, postcards, weighing scales made from wood plus various sizes and types of moulds, ring and belt buckle blocks.
If you wish to visit little repository of curios, phone first for permission. And to do the place justice, reckon on spending at least an hour there. So passionate are they about their craft that time tends to fly when you get taking to such knowledgeable gentlemen as these.
For more information call 02 224 2422, 02 622 8640/2 or 02 252 2898
www.tang-toh-kang.com
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
4. Wealth Of The Incas And The Aztec Treasure
When vast and ever increasing wealth pours into the palaces of kings, there are usually stories, not always pleasant stories, concerning the sources of those floods of gold. And behind all the extravagant display of gold and jewels in the English court, behind the growing wealth of Spain and of thte principal cities of Italy, there lies a story of cruelty and loot that reaches across the Atlantic and ties up with the western continent.
In 1492, eighty seven men and one visionary leader set sail in three none too seaworthy ships. A year later the explorers returned, bringing with them, among other things, gold and marvelous tales. Columbus had not succeeded in finding a new route to the East, but he had blazed the trail for the adventurous Spaniards, who were presently to plunder two ancient civilizations—the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru.
‘The gold of the Incas!’ Ever since the fifteenth century that phrase has spelled high adventure, fabulous wealth, and a game of hide and seek. Once set in motion a tradition of hidden treasure and the lure of it passes from generation to generation. We still search for the treasure of the Incas. How much of it remains hidden to this day?
It is said a man may well go mad at the sudden acquisition of heaped gold and gems. At all events, in Mexico and Peru the Spanish conquerors came upon such hoarded wealth as seldom falls to the lot of adventurers, and it may be inferred that their joy was not hampered by considerations of justice or mercy.
Among the treasures of the Incas were rich personal ornaments made of precious metals and quantities of emeralds and pearls. Temples were filled with vast amounts of gold and silver and their stucco walls were studded with gems.
All this wealth was treasure trove for the victorious Spaniards, but the appetite for riches grew with what it fed on. There must be more emeralds where these came from....But when the Spaniards questioned them concerning the whereabouts of the emerald mines, the Incas refused to tell. Even when the new masters attempted to extract the information by means of torture their victims remained mute.
So the Spaniards set out to discover for themselves the source of the valuable stones, but with such care had the Indians eliminated all trace of the tunnel-like openings into underground pockets of emeralds, and so quickly did the jungle growth conceal the paths that led to them, that the Spaniards did not succeed in finding a single mine until years later when, in 1555, one of the native mines of Muzo, in Colombia, was discovered quite by accident.
Peru was not only source of the treasure which voyagers brought from the new world across the sea and dispersed among the rich and the royal of Europe. There was also Mexico to provide plunder.
An old record, printed in 1521, which has the distinction of being the first printed account of events in the New World, tells of the marvelous craftsmanship of the goldsmiths of Mexico. Earrings, necklaces of hollow gold beads, armlets of gold are listed; and little figures of fish, ducks and frogs; golden fish-hooks and tiny golden bells are described.
By the time the Spaniards reached Mexico in full force the royal regalia of the Aztecs had been accumulating for generations and had become a mighty treasure.
Cortés and his soldiers marched into Mexico, following as they went the customary practice of ‘persuading’ the natives to join their standard. Before Cortés entered Mexico City, its ruling chief, Montezuma II, warned no doubt by rumors of what might be expected, had taken means to protect the massed store of gold and gems from the looting band, not, however, by force of arms but by strategy. The soldiers were allowed to roam the city in search of valuables, and they did, to be sure, find much gold and other treasure. But unfortunately for Montezuma’s policy there was an ex-carpenter among Cortés men. With the observant eye of the craftsman, he noticed that at a certain place in the plastered wall of a passageway the faint outline of a doorway was still visible under its camouflage layer of plaster. The man reported his suspicions to Cortés—and the fat was in the fire. The plaster was torn off and there indeed was a door underneath it.
We are fortunate in having the report of an eyewitness, Diaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier-historian, concerning what happened when that hidden door was finally opened. Cortés and some of his captains were the first to enter the secret chamber. Says Diaz:
On entering a narrow and low door, they found a large and spacious room, in the middle of which was a heap of gold, jewels and precious stones as high as a man; so high was it that one was not to be seen on the other side of it....It was the treasure of all the kings. Platters, cups some with feet and some without, all gold....
This treasure of ‘all the kings’ was doomed to a fate so common to plundered jewels. The stones were pried from their settings and the elaborately wrought gold was consigned to the melting pot.
We began to melt it down with the help of natives. The resulting bars measured three fingers of a hand across. Many captains ordered very large golden chains made by the great Montezuma’s goldsmiths.... Cortés, too, ordered many jewels made, and a great service of plate.
Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico speaks of great emeralds of wonderful brilliance which had been carved by the Aztecs into fantastic forms of fishes and flowers.
Avid desire for treasure was not satisfied even by all the conveniently-at-hand collected hoards of Peru and Mexico. Shortly, the Spaniards began to work the emerald mines of Colombia and to gather pearls along the coast of South America. Back to Europe went ships whose cargoes list such items as two chests, each containing ‘one hundred weight of emeralds,’ and pearls in such numbers that they were sold at public auction in Seville—not singly but by the basket.
The rich in all high places of Europe fairly wallowed in jewels.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
4. Wealth Of The Incas And The Aztec Treasure
When vast and ever increasing wealth pours into the palaces of kings, there are usually stories, not always pleasant stories, concerning the sources of those floods of gold. And behind all the extravagant display of gold and jewels in the English court, behind the growing wealth of Spain and of thte principal cities of Italy, there lies a story of cruelty and loot that reaches across the Atlantic and ties up with the western continent.
In 1492, eighty seven men and one visionary leader set sail in three none too seaworthy ships. A year later the explorers returned, bringing with them, among other things, gold and marvelous tales. Columbus had not succeeded in finding a new route to the East, but he had blazed the trail for the adventurous Spaniards, who were presently to plunder two ancient civilizations—the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru.
‘The gold of the Incas!’ Ever since the fifteenth century that phrase has spelled high adventure, fabulous wealth, and a game of hide and seek. Once set in motion a tradition of hidden treasure and the lure of it passes from generation to generation. We still search for the treasure of the Incas. How much of it remains hidden to this day?
It is said a man may well go mad at the sudden acquisition of heaped gold and gems. At all events, in Mexico and Peru the Spanish conquerors came upon such hoarded wealth as seldom falls to the lot of adventurers, and it may be inferred that their joy was not hampered by considerations of justice or mercy.
Among the treasures of the Incas were rich personal ornaments made of precious metals and quantities of emeralds and pearls. Temples were filled with vast amounts of gold and silver and their stucco walls were studded with gems.
All this wealth was treasure trove for the victorious Spaniards, but the appetite for riches grew with what it fed on. There must be more emeralds where these came from....But when the Spaniards questioned them concerning the whereabouts of the emerald mines, the Incas refused to tell. Even when the new masters attempted to extract the information by means of torture their victims remained mute.
So the Spaniards set out to discover for themselves the source of the valuable stones, but with such care had the Indians eliminated all trace of the tunnel-like openings into underground pockets of emeralds, and so quickly did the jungle growth conceal the paths that led to them, that the Spaniards did not succeed in finding a single mine until years later when, in 1555, one of the native mines of Muzo, in Colombia, was discovered quite by accident.
Peru was not only source of the treasure which voyagers brought from the new world across the sea and dispersed among the rich and the royal of Europe. There was also Mexico to provide plunder.
An old record, printed in 1521, which has the distinction of being the first printed account of events in the New World, tells of the marvelous craftsmanship of the goldsmiths of Mexico. Earrings, necklaces of hollow gold beads, armlets of gold are listed; and little figures of fish, ducks and frogs; golden fish-hooks and tiny golden bells are described.
By the time the Spaniards reached Mexico in full force the royal regalia of the Aztecs had been accumulating for generations and had become a mighty treasure.
Cortés and his soldiers marched into Mexico, following as they went the customary practice of ‘persuading’ the natives to join their standard. Before Cortés entered Mexico City, its ruling chief, Montezuma II, warned no doubt by rumors of what might be expected, had taken means to protect the massed store of gold and gems from the looting band, not, however, by force of arms but by strategy. The soldiers were allowed to roam the city in search of valuables, and they did, to be sure, find much gold and other treasure. But unfortunately for Montezuma’s policy there was an ex-carpenter among Cortés men. With the observant eye of the craftsman, he noticed that at a certain place in the plastered wall of a passageway the faint outline of a doorway was still visible under its camouflage layer of plaster. The man reported his suspicions to Cortés—and the fat was in the fire. The plaster was torn off and there indeed was a door underneath it.
We are fortunate in having the report of an eyewitness, Diaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier-historian, concerning what happened when that hidden door was finally opened. Cortés and some of his captains were the first to enter the secret chamber. Says Diaz:
On entering a narrow and low door, they found a large and spacious room, in the middle of which was a heap of gold, jewels and precious stones as high as a man; so high was it that one was not to be seen on the other side of it....It was the treasure of all the kings. Platters, cups some with feet and some without, all gold....
This treasure of ‘all the kings’ was doomed to a fate so common to plundered jewels. The stones were pried from their settings and the elaborately wrought gold was consigned to the melting pot.
We began to melt it down with the help of natives. The resulting bars measured three fingers of a hand across. Many captains ordered very large golden chains made by the great Montezuma’s goldsmiths.... Cortés, too, ordered many jewels made, and a great service of plate.
Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico speaks of great emeralds of wonderful brilliance which had been carved by the Aztecs into fantastic forms of fishes and flowers.
Avid desire for treasure was not satisfied even by all the conveniently-at-hand collected hoards of Peru and Mexico. Shortly, the Spaniards began to work the emerald mines of Colombia and to gather pearls along the coast of South America. Back to Europe went ships whose cargoes list such items as two chests, each containing ‘one hundred weight of emeralds,’ and pearls in such numbers that they were sold at public auction in Seville—not singly but by the basket.
The rich in all high places of Europe fairly wallowed in jewels.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
A more subtle example of Goya’s anti-clerical tendency is the little picture in the National Gallery, ‘The Bewitched’, in which, while professing to do no more than paint a stage scene from a popular comedy of the time, the artist shows us a priest frightened by demons in forms of a goat and jackasses.
Like most of the intellectual men in Spain, Goya had at first welcomed the coming of Napoleon, for anything seemed promise a hope of better things than the old regime. But, later, the piteous spectacle of his country in the throes of warfare seemed to rouse the patriot in him, and he began to champion its rights in a series of the most moving paintings and engravings. In 1810 he began to execute a series of engravings entitled ‘The Disasters of War’, which were absolutely a new thing in art. Hitherto artists, with few exceptions, had shown only the imposing side of war, its panoply and splendor, its daring and heroism. Goya was the first artist to make a deliberate and systematic impeachment of Militarism. Not only did he refuse to glorify the old adage that ‘it is sweet and decorous to die for one’s country,’ but he persistently showed all the blood and misery with which military glory was bought. In his engravings of the war he shows the unchaining of the ‘human beast,’ and his prints of the torturing of prisoners and the shooting of deserters are ghastly in their revelation of raging madness and the distortions of death agonies.
In his paintings also Goya told the terrible story of the tragedies which ensued when the Spanish volunteers took up arms against Napoleon’s soldiery. There is no more awful war picture in the world than Goya’s painting of an incident in 1808, in which we see the gleam of the gun-barrels, and poor wretches who have been condemned by court-martial falling forward prone before the musket-fire of the troops. The despair of the condemned, and the cold-blooded energy of the executioners are appalling.
Yet while he lamented the sufferings of the patriots during the Peninsular War, Goya could not rejoice at the restoration of the Bourbons after the fall of Napoleon. For when King Ferdinand returned to Madrid in 1814, Goya saw that all hope of liberalism and freedom of thought had vanished, and that the powers of darkness, which for the time had been scared away, again settled on the land and obscured truth, progress, and enlightenment. The last ‘disaster of the war’ was the resettlement of the Bourbons, who had ‘learnt nothing and forgotten nothing,’ on the throne of Spain, and Goya with his old fearlessness expressed his view of the matter in his engraving ‘The Death of Truth,’ in which he showed thte naked figure of Truth suffering martyrdom at the hands of the priests.
We might expect that this outspoken work would have proved too much even for the most stupid, priest-ridden Court to swallow, but nothing that Goya could do ever brought home to royalty what the artist really thought of them and their government. King Ferdinand confirmed Goya’s appointment as Court Painter, and even persuaded him to paint a portrait of him in the purple mantle of empire, but now the artist himself was too old and too sick at heart to play the hypocrite at Court and paint grandees with his tongue in his cheek. Gradually Goya withdrew from the public life and established himself in a simple country house on the outskirts of Madrid. His wife and son were both dead, since 1791 he had himself been afflicted with deafness, and in this villa the lonely painter lived out his life in company with his art. His last protest against the tendencies of the time were some small paintings of the interiors of prisons and torture-chambers, in which he reminds us that the Inquisition had again raised its head under King Ferdinand. Among his last works were scenes of bull-fights, of the details of which Goya, in his youth, had acquired a professional knowledge. Greatly as all humanitarians must detest this horrid sport, its color and movement appeal to the artistic sense, and the decorative aspect of the scene is the dominant note in Goya’s renderings of this subject.
After nine years of this lonely life Goya seems to have felt himself no longer very secure in Spain. Perhaps he feared that the clerics would in the end perceive his purpose and have their revenge on him. At all events, in 1824 he sought and obtained leave of absence for six weeks to visit the sulphur springs of Plombières in Lorraine on account of his gout. But this appears to have been merely an excuse to get out of Spain, for he never went to Plombières, but after visiting Paris, settled at Bordeaux, where, on April 16, 1828, he died as the result of a stroke of apoplexy. In his last years he was not only stone deaf but half blind, and consequently his creative work in France was small, but one engraving remains to show that the old cynic never swerved from his faith and still had hope for the future. ‘Lux ex tenebris’ is the pregnant title of this work of his old age, and in it he shows us a shaft of light falling on a dark spot of earth (Spain?) and scaring away from it owls, ravens—and priests!
A more subtle example of Goya’s anti-clerical tendency is the little picture in the National Gallery, ‘The Bewitched’, in which, while professing to do no more than paint a stage scene from a popular comedy of the time, the artist shows us a priest frightened by demons in forms of a goat and jackasses.
Like most of the intellectual men in Spain, Goya had at first welcomed the coming of Napoleon, for anything seemed promise a hope of better things than the old regime. But, later, the piteous spectacle of his country in the throes of warfare seemed to rouse the patriot in him, and he began to champion its rights in a series of the most moving paintings and engravings. In 1810 he began to execute a series of engravings entitled ‘The Disasters of War’, which were absolutely a new thing in art. Hitherto artists, with few exceptions, had shown only the imposing side of war, its panoply and splendor, its daring and heroism. Goya was the first artist to make a deliberate and systematic impeachment of Militarism. Not only did he refuse to glorify the old adage that ‘it is sweet and decorous to die for one’s country,’ but he persistently showed all the blood and misery with which military glory was bought. In his engravings of the war he shows the unchaining of the ‘human beast,’ and his prints of the torturing of prisoners and the shooting of deserters are ghastly in their revelation of raging madness and the distortions of death agonies.
In his paintings also Goya told the terrible story of the tragedies which ensued when the Spanish volunteers took up arms against Napoleon’s soldiery. There is no more awful war picture in the world than Goya’s painting of an incident in 1808, in which we see the gleam of the gun-barrels, and poor wretches who have been condemned by court-martial falling forward prone before the musket-fire of the troops. The despair of the condemned, and the cold-blooded energy of the executioners are appalling.
Yet while he lamented the sufferings of the patriots during the Peninsular War, Goya could not rejoice at the restoration of the Bourbons after the fall of Napoleon. For when King Ferdinand returned to Madrid in 1814, Goya saw that all hope of liberalism and freedom of thought had vanished, and that the powers of darkness, which for the time had been scared away, again settled on the land and obscured truth, progress, and enlightenment. The last ‘disaster of the war’ was the resettlement of the Bourbons, who had ‘learnt nothing and forgotten nothing,’ on the throne of Spain, and Goya with his old fearlessness expressed his view of the matter in his engraving ‘The Death of Truth,’ in which he showed thte naked figure of Truth suffering martyrdom at the hands of the priests.
We might expect that this outspoken work would have proved too much even for the most stupid, priest-ridden Court to swallow, but nothing that Goya could do ever brought home to royalty what the artist really thought of them and their government. King Ferdinand confirmed Goya’s appointment as Court Painter, and even persuaded him to paint a portrait of him in the purple mantle of empire, but now the artist himself was too old and too sick at heart to play the hypocrite at Court and paint grandees with his tongue in his cheek. Gradually Goya withdrew from the public life and established himself in a simple country house on the outskirts of Madrid. His wife and son were both dead, since 1791 he had himself been afflicted with deafness, and in this villa the lonely painter lived out his life in company with his art. His last protest against the tendencies of the time were some small paintings of the interiors of prisons and torture-chambers, in which he reminds us that the Inquisition had again raised its head under King Ferdinand. Among his last works were scenes of bull-fights, of the details of which Goya, in his youth, had acquired a professional knowledge. Greatly as all humanitarians must detest this horrid sport, its color and movement appeal to the artistic sense, and the decorative aspect of the scene is the dominant note in Goya’s renderings of this subject.
After nine years of this lonely life Goya seems to have felt himself no longer very secure in Spain. Perhaps he feared that the clerics would in the end perceive his purpose and have their revenge on him. At all events, in 1824 he sought and obtained leave of absence for six weeks to visit the sulphur springs of Plombières in Lorraine on account of his gout. But this appears to have been merely an excuse to get out of Spain, for he never went to Plombières, but after visiting Paris, settled at Bordeaux, where, on April 16, 1828, he died as the result of a stroke of apoplexy. In his last years he was not only stone deaf but half blind, and consequently his creative work in France was small, but one engraving remains to show that the old cynic never swerved from his faith and still had hope for the future. ‘Lux ex tenebris’ is the pregnant title of this work of his old age, and in it he shows us a shaft of light falling on a dark spot of earth (Spain?) and scaring away from it owls, ravens—and priests!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Normal Accidents
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies by Charles Perrow is a fascinating book + it provides unique insight so that we are able to understand high risk systems + the intrepretation of accident analysis and conclusions + the people factor + the amazing thing is, it's happening today + I feel, timely.
Walter Schloss
I found the article on Walter Schloss via Forbes @ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0211/048.html very interesting + educational + insightful + as Warren Buffet put it rightly, Walter Schloss is a flesh-and-blood refutation of the Efficient Market Theory.
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